Author: Frank, PANews
Golem Network, a project that raised 820,000 ETH in its ICO in 2016, has recently been attracting attention for its frequent sales of ETH. As of July 8, a total of 36,000 ETH had been sold, worth approximately US$114.5 million. Combined with the previous creation of the largest ICO case in the industry, the EOS founding company still holds 140,000 Bitcoins, worth approximately $8 billion.
Investors suddenly discovered that some of the teams in the projects they had rushed to invest in had disappeared, and the projects that had not held the money had made a lot of money. PANews made an inventory of the asset status of the 10 hottest ICO projects in 2016 and 2017, and found that most of the investment returns of all projects were not as good as Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Sirin Labs: raised 157 million, token market value is only $70,000
The biggest contrast between the amount of financing and the current development situation is Sirin Labs, which raised approximately US$158 million through ICO in 2017. It became one of the star projects with the largest ICO amount that year. The token it issued is SRN. Its current market value is only US$70,000, and its 24-hour transaction volume is only US$8.
Sirin Labs was the first company to target Web3 mobile phone products. As early as 2017, it used the blockchain smartphone Finney as a gimmick to raise US$158 million in ICO market. In 2018, football player Messi also conducted an investment for this encrypted phone. Endorsement. The good times did not last long. In 2019, it was revealed that Sirin Labs had laid off 25% of its employees due to poor mobile phone sales and was in arrears with factory wages. In 2021, investors in Sirin Labs were indicted for using ICO fraud to embezzle more than $250 million.
Today, Sirin Labs’ social media account has not been updated for more than three years, and only “liar” curses are left in the comment area.
EOS: The highest ICO in history creates the richest Block.one
EOS created an ICO fundraising peak, a record that has yet to be broken. In 2017, with BM’s star halo and Li Xiaolai’s endorsement. EOS, known as the Ethereum killer and third-generation public chain, has received more than $4 billion in financing, becoming the largest ICO project in the crypto field to date.
Block.one, the company behind EOS, subsequently converted all the ETH it raised into BTC, and its holdings once exceeded 164,000, surpassing MicroStrategy, a major Bitcoin holder. According to the latest data, the company Block.one still holds more than 140,000 Bitcoins, with a total value of more than $8 billion.
In 2022, the EOS Foundation made several attempts to get Block.one to return $4.1 billion through legal means and transform EOS into a DAO organization. In April this year, the EOS Foundation tried to launch new token economics, but the market seems to have completely abandoned this former public chain star, and the price has dropped by nearly 40% since April. Today, EOS tokens have a market capitalization of just $780 million, less than a tenth of the value of Block.one’s Bitcoin holdings.
Tezos: The token market value is not as large as the foundation’s assets
The public chain Tezos received US$232 million in investment through ICO in 2017. Although the Tezos Foundation is rumored to hold 17,500 Bitcoins, PANews according to the Tezos Foundation's March 2024 report shows that the organization still holds 17,500 Bitcoins. There are BTC worth US$295 million. Based on the BTC price at that time, the number is about 5,000. However, Tezos raised a total of 65,681 Bitcoins and 361,000 Ethereum coins during the ICO. These tokens are now worth about $4.8 billion, while the current total market value of the Tezos token TXZ is about $740 million, which is only 3 times the amount raised and not even as good as the Tezos Foundation’s 760 million assets.
Polkadot: Still holds 300,000 Ethereum unsold
Recently, the public chain Polkadot has caused heated discussions due to its first-half financial report. Its promotion fee expenditure of US$87 million and revenue of US$1.1 million have aroused concerns in the community. It seems that the promotion cost of 87 million is not as high as the topic triggered by a financial report. As a star project in 2017, Polkadot raised $140 million in financing that year and raised more than 429,000 Ethereums. According to on-chain data, there are currently 306,000 Ethereum held in the ICO’s smart contract address, worth approximately US$930 million. Therefore, concerns about Polkadot’s vault appear to be unfounded. This portion of Ethereum tokens has not been sold since the beginning.
Bancor: From unknown to unknown
The decentralized trading protocol Bancor raised approximately 390,000 Ethereum through ICO in 2017, worth over US$150 million, exceeding the amount raised by The DAO. The current value of these tokens is about $1.1 billion, while the market value of Bancor’s token BNT is only about $70 million. For users who invested at the time, this result was obviously unacceptable.
Golem: Be careful with your budget and sell your assets more and more.
Golem Network is a very early ICO project. As early as 2016, Golem Network proposed the concept of a decentralized computing power market. By 2024, Golem Network will be famous not for its forward-looking market deployment, but for its persistence in financial management. currency strategy. In 2016, Golem Network raised 820,000 Ethereum through ICO, making it the project that raised the most Ethereum besides EOS. Although Golem's project progress has been tepid, the project team did not sell off ETH as quickly as other teams, but sold it in small quantities and many times over the years. From the earliest ICO worth US$9 million, by June 2019, although the number of coins held dropped to 369,000, the value exceeded US$100 million. The current number of coins held has dropped to 125,000, with a total value of US$390 million. Riding on the dividends of the growth in the price of Ethereum, Golem's assets are selling more and more. The people who invested $11 in ETH at the time didn’t know what to think.
TenX: The project team was liquidated in a wave, with a market value of only US$1.64 million.
Payment project TenX raised over $80 million in 2017, totaling 245,832 Ethereum. However, the project team does not seem to have much confidence in the encryption market. One month after the ICO, they began to sell most of the tokens through exchanges. The current market value of the project’s token PAY is only $1.64 million.
Filecoin: The star of decentralized storage is still hot
As a popular decentralized storage project, Filecoin was also one of the projects with the highest amount of financing in 2017. Filecoin raised $253 million through ICO. To this day, there are still many crypto investors mining FIL tokens through mining machines. Judging from the results, the current market capitalization of the FIL token is approximately $2.2 billion, second only to Polkadot among the star projects of 2017.
Cardano: Raising 100,000 BTC, a rare ICO evergreen tree
Cardano has kept a relatively low profile, rarely gaining much attention in the market through marketing. However, as a former public chain star, Cardano also created the longest-lasting ICO record. It conducted a total of 5 rounds of ICO from 2015 to 2017, raising 108,000 BTC, with a total amount of approximately US$62.24 million. However, the performance of its token ADA has been good. It still has a market value of US$17.7 billion and ranks around 10th. It can be regarded as a rare project that is still competitive in the ICO era.
Status: It was hard to find a coin back then, but now I’m lucky I haven’t invested in it.
Status completed a $105 million ICO in 2017, raising a total of 300,000 ETH. Since 2017, the project has successively sold off the tokens it holds and currently holds 17,000 Ethereum, worth approximately $54 million. Its token, SNT, has a market capitalization of approximately $150 million. Status was also unusually popular in 2017. According to official disclosures, the ICO returned as much as 347,000 ETH, which was more than the amount raised. I wonder if these investors who did not successfully get on the bus are now glad that they did not exchange their ETH for SNT.
Summarize
In addition to the projects listed above, there were a large number of projects during the hot ICO era of 2016~2017, many of which have been completely discontinued and are silent in the market. It is always meaningful to look back at history. Judging from the 10 projects listed, these projects were undoubtedly the most dazzling stars of that era. They had the halo of celebrities and easily obtained huge investments. Seven years have passed, and the project that claimed to be the next Bitcoin and Ethereum has changed its players. This also makes us think about how many of today's star projects will still exist in the public eye in another seven years, and who will be able to fulfill their promises or survive on financing.
(The above content is excerpted and reprinted with the authorization of our partner PANews, original text link)
Statement: The article only represents the author's personal views and opinions, and does not represent the objective views and positions of the blockchain. All contents and opinions are for reference only and do not constitute investment advice. Investors should make their own decisions and transactions, and the author and Blockchain Client will not be held responsible for any direct or indirect losses caused by investors' transactions.
〈It was hard to find a coin back then, but now you are lucky enough not to invest? This article, taking stock of the “ICO money-attracting behemoths” of the past, was first published on “Block Guest”.
